Laying Bricks Every Hour
by ArtHouse
Summary: "Rome wasn't built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour". After the war, Harry needs a vacation. He decided to head to the United States in order to try and see his old friend, Kelly Gibbs. While he may not find who he is looking for, he might just find the family he needs in the NCIS team.
1. A New Beginning

**A note on the timeline: Harry was born in 1987 instead of 1980, while Ziva was still born in 1982 like she is in the show. As this starts during season 4, this means that is is currently 2006, making Harry be 19 and Ziva be 24. Harry helped catch the rest of the Death Eaters over the course of a bit over a year after Deathly Hallows ended and has been living with Andromeda Tonks to help raise Teddy over this same time period. Harry and Ginny never got back together in this fic, so don't worry about him cheating on her. Enjoy!**

* * *

"Are you sure that this is alright, Andi? I could shorten the trip or maybe take the two of you with me if you'd like to come?"

Voldemort was finally dead. The vast majority of the Death Eaters were captured. A deal had been made with the goblins, and Harry Potter was about to take the very first vacation that he had ever been on. The only problem that Harry had with this was that he did not want to leave his godson, Teddy, behind while he went off to America.

"Yes, Harry. I am absolutely sure that we will be fine," Andromeda Tonks replied patiently, "You deserve a break after the war, and I can manage to take care of Teddy for a month without your help. While you have been an amazing father to Teddy, you're still a young man! You need to go out an see the world a bit more and take some time to relax, and you can't do either of those with Teddy and I along for the ride. Now you better get moving, or you're going to be late for your flight."

While there were international portkeys and even international floos, Harry had decided that this trip was going to be entirely muggle. He felt that it was high time to get back in touch with his muggle side, and to that end had managed to work towards getting both his A-Levels and his muggle driver's license over the past year. The only magical artifacts that Harry even planned on bringing on this trip were his invisibility cloak (which his paranoia and PTSD wouldn't let him leave the house without), his wands, both Holly and Elder, and Sirius's shrunken motorcycle so he did not have to rent a car once he got to America.

"Alright. Alright. I'll go. Just call me if you need anything. You and Teddy are more important than some vacation that I can always go on some other time," Harry said, as he went out the door, shrunken bags in side of the backpack that he had gotten to seem normal to the other passengers.

* * *

After apparating to Heathrow Airport and going through security, Harry decided he had enough time to grab a bite to eat before queuing up to get onto the plane. With both the money that his parents had left him and the bounty that he had received for taking out Voldemort, Harry had more that enough money to get first class for the long flight from London to Washington D.C. After loading onto the plane, he noticed that he ended up sitting next to a woman a few years older than him of Israeli descent who was sorting through some files that he could see marked as "IS NON-CLASSIFI" with some of the letters on either end getting cut off due to the way she was holding them. She had dark hair that was tied back into a tight ponytail, and appeared to be wearing a tight shirt with cargo pants. As she became aware of Harry sitting down next to her, she started to put the files away. Harry's work with MI5 cleaning up what was left of the Death Eaters after Voldemort's fall left him with the knowledge that NCIS was an American governmental agency, but he did not know very much about them beyond that.

_'Might as well introduce myself,' _Harry thought, _"This is certainly going to be a long flight if we're just sitting in silence for 8 and a half hours."_

"Harry Potter," Harry said, putting out his hand for her to shake, "Mind if I ask why you're heading to Washington D.C.?"

"Ziva David," the woman, Ziva, replied, her voice holding just the barest trace of her original Israeli accent, "I was actually just heading home. I was in London to see my father, and what about you? Why are you going all the way to D.C.?"

"Just taking a vacation. Hoping I'll run into an old friend maybe," Harry said, sounding wistful at even the thought of seeing his oldest friend. "I haven't seen Kelly in a long time, but last I heard, her dad was moving to D.C. for work, so she might be there too."

The two of them continued to talk for the rest of the flight, not seeming to notice the time that had gone by until they suddenly heard the pilot calling out that there were about to descend. As they went down, Harry pulled out a muggle pen and a piece of paper that had an old grocery list on the other side in Andromeda's neat cursive.

"Let me give you my cell number. I'll be in town for a while if you want to go and grab a drink sometime," Harry stated, hoping dearly that he could manage to see his new friend again sometime in the future. "I'll be renting an apartment over in Georgetown for the next month"

Ziva took the paper slowly, inspecting both the number that he had written as well as the grocery list on the other side, noticing the difference in hand writing between the two, assuming that the second set was Harry's roommate.

"I'd love to go out some time, Harry," Ziva smiled flirtatiously, leaving Harry sputtering on the water that he had just taken a sip of. Ziva bust out laughing, before going onwards, "In all seriousness, I'd enjoy spending some more time together. Friends are a rare commodity these days, and I would hate to lose one just after I got him."

* * *

After Harry managed to navigate his way over to Georgetown he decided to call Andi and Hermione and let them know that he was safely over in America. The majority of the Weasleys had been against the vacation, feeling that Harry should stay close for the time being until there was more stability in Magical Britain, but Hermione was adamant that Harry needed time off in order to sort out his head. When Hermione asked him where he wanted to go on his vacation, he instantly knew the answer. While he hadn't seen Kelly Gibbs in years, she had been his best friend throughout Primary School until her dad had gotten transferred to a different base away from England. When he told Hermione this, she instantly got to research and while she couldn't manage to find where Kelly lived, the name Leroy Jethro Gibbs was distinctive enough that he could be found with ease. It appeared that Gibbs worked at NCIS now, and Harry would try and visit him in the morning and see where Kelly lived._ 'It would be so nice to see her again after all this time,' _Harry thought to himself as he finally managed to drift off to sleep.


	2. A Meeting and a Reunion

**AN: Is it bad to say that I wrote this primarily because I wanted to know what would happen?**

* * *

The morning came far too soon for Harry as jetlagged as he was, but he knew that the only way for it to get better was simply for him to work through it. Thankfully Harry had grown to enjoy coffee while working for MI5 because tea simply wasn't strong enough to wake him up that morning.

As he drank his coffee, Harry paced back and forth in his rental's small kitchen, attempting to psyche himself up for the meeting that he hoped would happen later that day. As much as Sirius had tried, Gibbs was still the closest thing that Harry had to a father figure considering the amount of nights that Harry spent at the Gibbs house in an effort to get away from the Dursleys.

Reaching down into his backpack, Harry pulled out an old, faded set of note cards and Gibbs's old KA-BAR that had seen Harry through the war. Flipping through the note cards, Harry saw the rules that Gibbs had tried to instill into him and the rules that Harry had, subsequently, tried to live his life by.

"Rule #1: Never screw over your partner," Harry muttered to himself, "Sorry about that one, Kelly. I kinda dropped off the grid for a few years, but, now that I'm back, I hope I manage to do better."

Harry knew that they would never let him onto the Navy Yard if he carried his knife with him, so he decided, for the first time in over a decade, that it was okay to break Rule #9, never go anywhere without a knife.

Unshrinking Sirius's motorcycle was a simple task, but navigating the D.C. area to figure out where the Navy Yard is located was a far harder task, especially as Harry had to get used to driving on the right side of the road instead of the left. It did not help matters when a red and black Mini flew past him at one point, blasting their music and weaving through traffic.

"Bloody Americans," Harry said as he shook his head, "Think they can do whatever they bloody well please. Bah!"

* * *

Harry eventually managed to find the Navy Yard, even if it took him a few hours as he learned to navigate the city with frequent stops to consult his map. While he got some funny looks by the security officers for presenting a UK passport when asked for identification, the simple response that he was there to meet with Agent Gibbs was enough for them to shuffle him along his way and through security.

Now faced with the bright orange walls and even brighter windows that made up the main section of the NCIS building, Harry's hand started to shake. Overwhelmed by the idea of facing Gibbs after so long, he tried to take deep breaths like his therapist often told him to do when he started to panic, but it did not seem to work as Harry slipped further into his panic attack. Suddenly overwhelmed by the amount of light and noise in the office, Harry slid down the wall until he resembled a ball as much as he resembled a body, all the while hyperventilating, trying frantically to get the much-needed oxygen into his lungs.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Harry jerked his head towards the sudden voice and desperately tried to get his breathing under control for long enough to answer the woman that had appeared. She appeared to be in her late twenties, but her gothic style threw off Harry for a second before he managed to respond.

"Sorry about that. I'm afraid I took more back with me from the war than I intended to, if you know what I mean. I'm actually here to meet with an old friend of mine. Do you happen to know a Leroy Jethro Gibbs?" Harry was very careful to not explicitly state which war he had been in, but he knew better than most that his panic attacks were more easily dismissed when he stated that he had PTSD from being a solider. In Harry's eyes, it was a bit silly to be more sympathetic about panic attacks from PTSD than from mental illnesses, but he would be damned if he wouldn't take every chance he got to get the attention off of his "moment of weakness".

"Oh! You're friends with Gibbs? How do you know him? How long have you known him? Did you tell him that you were coming? He didn't tell me that you were coming. Maybe he wanted to surprise me? Oh, I'm sorry! I never introduced myself. I'm Abby Sciuto, but everyone just calls me Abby."

The goth woman in front of Harry seemed to let all of this out in one breath, and it was only Harry's experience with Hermione that allowed him to keep up with the questions that she had rattled off.

"In order, I am friends with him, yes. He lived close by to where I grew up. Around 15 years or so, and no I didn't tell him. And it is very nice to meet you Abby. My name is Harry Potter."

The conversation helped Harry's state, giving him something to focus on rather then the roar of voices that seemed to be coming from the cubicles.

"Very nice to meet you too, Harry! Let me guide you over to his desk. The team is out right now, but they should be back pretty soon if you want to wait for him." Abby replied with a far more steady voice than the excitable nature that she displayed before.

"Thank you so much for the help, Abby. I really appreciate it."

As Abby drifted off towards her lab, Harry decided to take a seat at Gibbs desk knowing that if he had to leave and come back, he might not ever have this conversation at all. As he sat back in Gibbs's chair, the panic attack that he had just undergone combined with the jetlag proved to be too much for Harry as he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

"I'm telling you, McGoo, the wife did it!"

"You always claim that the wife did it, Tony. Wait is there some kid sleeping at Gibbs's desk?"

"Who would be stupid enough to do that?"

Harry was suddenly aware of his surroundings, as the arguing voices got closer to him. Deciding to give up sleeping anymore as a lost cause, Harry sat up and stretched his arms outwards in an effort to return blood flow to his poor arms.

"Well there _was _someone sleeping at Gibbs's desk," Harry shot back at them, "and then some gits decided to come along and wake me up. And don't call me kid."

Even if Harry was used to having to wake up at all hours in order to take care of Teddy, that didn't mean that he actually liked it when people other than his godson woke him up without warning. Hell, the only reason that he put up with it for Teddy was the fact that he knew Andromeda needed the sleep more than he did.

The man on the left, McGoo apparently, though Harry doubted that was his real name, at least had the decency to look sheepish at the fact that they woke him up, but the man on the right had no such problems.

"You do know that Gibbs kills anyone that sits at his desk right?" Tony said, managing to sound both concerned and amused at the same time.

"I like to think that I'll be something of an exception," Harry replied easily, leaning back in the chair, "I've known Gibbs for a long time, so I like to think that he'll ask questions before shooting. Or at the very least aim at something non-vital."

The man called Tony looked at Harry incredulously, but, seeming to decide that it was Harry's life at stake, shrugged his shoulders and slumped back down at his desk.

"What's your name anyways, kid?" Tony said, crumpling up a ball of paper and pulling back to throw it at the other man.

"Harry Potter. Who are you guys? And do you know when Gibbs will be getting back?" Harry had interacted with enough government agents in his life to know when someone is forcing themselves to appear more relaxed, and Tony was setting off all of the alarms in his head right now.

"I am _very _Special Agent Anthony Dinozzo, and that over there is our Probie, McGee," Tony replied, "And he's chasing down a lead right now, so there's no knowing when he'll get back."

Just as Tony said that the elevator door opened and out walked a man that Harry instantly recognized as Gibbs. He may have gotten more gray over the years, but besides that he looked near identical to his younger self. Near identical except for one thing…

"Gibbs, what the bloody hell is that thing on you lip and why on earth would you force it upon the rest of us?" All thoughts of planned out conversations slipped out of Harry's mind the second that he saw the mustache that Gibbs had decided to grow.

Gibbs, meanwhile, seemed just as startled to see Harry present and at his desk as Harry was to see the mustache that adorned Gibbs face. It had been nearly 10 years since he had last seen Harry, and with the distance between his posting in Surrey and his next posting in Virginia it had been hard to keep in contact with the boy who had been over at his house nearly every single day.

"Harry! What are you doing here? Did you need any help?" Gibbs may have been startled to see Harry, but startled did not mean disappointed. He always had been concerned about the boy, and both he and Shannon had had many sleepless nights worrying over how Harry was doing after they had moved away. While they never had any proof that Harry's uncle was physically abusive, Vernon was still all too clear that he did not want Harry in that house.

"I was actually mostly wondering where Kelly is. I'm taking a vacation right now, and I decided that the first thing I wanted to do now that I was able to was come and see her. I miss my best friend, you know?" Harry smiled at the thought of finally being able to reconnect with Kelly once again, not seeming to notice the growing grimace on Gibbs's face.

"I think we need to have a talk, Harry. You see there was an accident back when Kelly was 11. Kelly is dead, Harry. Shannon too."

Harry's entire world seemed to shatter all at once. All that had kept him alive throughout the war was the idea that one day he could reconnect with his best friend again and introduce her to magic. He knew that Kelly would love magic more than anyone he had ever met, but that goal was failed before it even started. He was suddenly back in the war again, his friends dying while he could do nothing but watch, but instead of Fred and Moony and Tonks, all Harry could see were Kelly's dead eyes staring back into his, cutting through him.

Before he even knew it, Harry was sobbing into Gibbs's shoulder, mourning not only the best friend that he had ever had, but also the loss of what could have been. He would never get to reconnect with Kelly. Never get to apologize for dropping off the map and not replying to letters after he went off to Hogwarts. Never get to tell her about all of the adventures that he went on and all of the good that he had managed to do for the world, or at least his corner of it.

"It's okay, Harry," Gibbs whispered softly in his ear, "I'm so sorry that you had to find out like this."

The words of comfort did little to help Harry, but eventually he had to stop sobbing if only to take in more air. Looking up, Harry noticed that both Tony and McGee had thankfully decided to walk away at some point in the conversation. It was bad enough losing it in front of Gibbs like that; he did not want to think about how embarrassing it would have been to do it in front of two people he barley knew as well.

Gibbs handed Harry a tissue, concern all over his face, as Harry tried desperately to not start sobbing all over again. He had lost too much in too little time to lose Kelly too, but yet he had lost her. And he would need to march on anyways. '_Sometimes,' _Harry thought, _'being the Boy-Who-Won't-Bloody-Die is the worst thing that ever happened to me. All I want is to see my family, and they keep dying around me.'_

"Can I ask what you're planning on doing now then?" Gibbs seemed to be able to tell that Harry was feeling better, even if only marginally, and wanted to see how long he would have Harry around for. Family should stick together through hardships, and Harry was most certainly family.

"Well I have a flat rented for the month, so I'm staying around DC until then I guess," Harry replied, sounding somber as he tried to avoid thinking of the fact that his best friend outside of Ron and Hermione was dead and buried.

"Well we can manage to get together plenty of times while you're here then. Here, let me give you my address. I have some photos of Kelly that I think you might like to have. Some ones of the two of you together."

All the sudden there was a commotion as the elevator doors opened up to reveal a very familiar woman of Israeli descent.

"Harry? What are you doing here?"


	3. A Surprise

**Sorry for this chapter taking a fair bit longer than the previous one. I started a new job, and the training is taking up a fair bit of my time.** **Enjoy!**

* * *

Harry Potter did not think that he was a particularly attractive man. The Second Blood War, as it was commonly starting to be called, had left its marks on him both physically and mentally, and the multitude of scars were often considered offsetting at best and repulsive at worst by the men and women that he had flirted with after the end of the war. He was even more aware of this right now due to the fact that a very attractive woman was staring right at him while his eyes were puffy and red, and his nose was running like there was no tomorrow.

Ziva, on the other hand, barely even noticed the scars that adorned Harry's body. Working as a solider and then later a Mossad officer in a mid-intensity war zone tended to make someone shrug off something as common as scars. Ziva _did, _however, notice that her new friend demonstrated all of the signs of someone who was bawling their eyes out mere minutes before.

"I apologize, Harry. I should have asked how you were doing first. I really put my hand in my mouth that time, didn't I?"

"It's alright, Ziva, and it's "foot in your mouth", not hand." Harry gave a weak chuckle, still slightly out of breath from his earlier break down. "I'm afraid that I just received some bad news about the friend that I came to the States to see."

"While I am sorry that you are unable to see your friend, that does still leave me with the question of what you are doing _here_ of all places?" Ziva asked, seeming to either be ignorant of the tension in the room, or, more likely considering what Harry knew of Ziva's personality, she was simply willing to ignore it.

Gibbs, however, was not so willing to ignore how rude Ziva seemed to be, nor was he willing to ignore the fact that she had yet to acknowledge his presence in the room. He reached out in a well practiced manner and gave a light slap to the back of Ziva's head to get her back on track and focused.

"While I am very interested to find out how you two know each other, there are more important things going on here. Ziva. Report."

"Right. When I talked to Corporal Stillman's CO, he claimed that Stillman was a good Marine who was well liked by his squad mates, even if he did have a habit of partying a bit too hard when they were on leave. Nothing unusual in his record either."

"Check out his financials too."

While Ziva and Gibbs had their conversation, Harry was managing to pull himself together enough to catch some of what they were talking about.

"Is there anyway that I can be of assistance?" Harry asked tentatively, "I have nothing going on now that I had my meeting with Gibbs."

"No, Harry. You don't have the necessary training or clearance." Gibbs replied, his voice still slightly on edge from the discussion of his family's deaths.

Harry pulled a badge out of his bag, presented it to Gibbs, and said, "You're wrong on at least one of those accounts. Let me re-introduce myself then. Harry Potter, MI5, or at least I was until two weeks ago."

The tension was once more thick in the room as Gibbs and Ziva both tried to figure out how to handle this revelation that a 19 year old was an active field agent at MI5. While Gibbs was proud of Harry's accomplishments, the fact that most field agents don't actually get sent into the field until their late 20s made this discovery even more startling.

Ziva had had an unusual career to say the least. Graduating early, she had finished college by the time that she was 19 before being conscripted into the IDF for her two-year stint. She then immediately went on to join Mossad with the vast amount of her training being waived due to her testing out of it. She was a highly respected officer with three years under her belt, but none of this could keep the shock off of her face when she heard that Harry had managed to be a MI5 field agent at the age of 19.

"Hey boss, I grabbed some pizza. Want some?"

Tony walked into the room less like a bull in a china shop and more like a bomb. With no clue what he was interrupting, Tony had managed to break the pressure that was currently building in the room.

"Is that a no on the pizza then?"

* * *

"Agent Potter is to have full clearance to this investigation due to the fact that the marine's wife is a British national!"

Andrew Parker, the Director of MI5, was annoyed. While he knew intellectually that none of this was actually Potter's fault and that he was just on vacation to visit a man that _happened _to be one of the State's best criminal investigators, he couldn't help but still think that this could only happen to Potter.

"With all due respect, Director, the fact that you have refused to send over Agent Potter's records, even the redacted ones, means that, by NCIS policy, we cannot allow him to take place in our investigation," Director Shepard, head of NCIS, said in reply, "There is barely any precedent for allowing foreign nationals take part in our investigations in the first place, let alone doing so without having any idea of the Agent in question's record."

"There is a Mossad officer on the team that my Agent is requesting clearance to!"

"Be that as it may, Officer David was thoroughly vetted before we allowed her access to any of our files, and Agent Potter will need to undergo the same."

It was at that exact moment that Parker knew that he needed to play his trump card. The heads of all major national security agencies were alerted to the presence of magic just in case they ran into it during an investigation that they were performing so that they could alert the magical authorities.

"Fine. Clear the room and I'll debrief you myself."

After Director Shepard did so, Director Parker began his debriefing, "Harry Potter is a national hero to the British magical community and is one of six people alive who has been awarded the Victoria Cross. On top of this, he is the only civilian to be awarded the VC since 1879, and one of four people in history to be awarded it twice. Harry Potter is one of our finest agents, and if it were not for the fact that he specifically requested permission to aid your team while he is on vacation, I would not be inclined to allow it at all. As is, he did request permission directly from me, and therefore I am asking you, kindly, to accept his request before I need to involve the Queen."

Jenny Shepard thought that she had seen it all. The numerous investigations and missions that she had performed prepared her for almost anything that she came across in her position as head of NCIS, but the key word was almost. She was not prepared for this. What had originally started out as a request from Gibbs to confirm Harry's story had quickly snowballed into what had the potential to become a major international incident as it turned out that not only was Harry's story true, he was actually downplaying his role in the British government.

"He's _the _Harry Potter? The one that took out that Voldemort guy a bit over a year ago?"

"The very same."

"Well shit. I guess he's on the team then."

* * *

The bullpen of NCIS seemed to be its usual flurry of activity everywhere except for the desks of the Major Case Response Team, usually just referred to as Team Gibbs. Almost everyone there was completely dumbfounded by the lengths that the head of MI5 was willing to go to for the teen in front of them.

The teen, on the other hand, had decided that he absolutely loved pizza. The Wizarding World, as old fashioned as it was, served classic British cuisine almost exclusively except for special occasions such as the Triwizard Tournament, and the Dursleys would never have allowed Harry to have something as good as pizza, especially with the way that Vernon hated everything about foreigners. The only thing that his uncle would have ever denied Dudley was food that originated in a different country.

"Harry. The director says that you're on the team. Direct order from Director Parker of MI5." Gibbs still did not know what to think about the fact that the boy he considered his own son was apparently high-ranking enough at MI5 to have the director's personal attentions.

"Oh good! I'm glad that Andrew was able to sort everything out then. I'm afraid that I forgot about time zones when I originally called him and ended up waking him up. He wasn't too cross, was he?"

"On the contrary, he said that you were 'a national hero' and 'one of the finest agents he had ever had'. Mind telling me how you got that reputation?"

"I'm afraid that that is classified. I sure am excited to get started though. Mind if I ask where the forensic lab is so we can get started?"

When Harry and Gibbs entered the elevator together, Gibbs reached over and flipped the emergency stop switch, stopping the elevator and turning down the lights.

"Harry. I need you to tell me how you managed to get such a reputation while only being 19. Did someone force you into service young?"

"The people who were responsible are gone now. I can assure you of that. Trust me though, I am fine, and I like to think that I am better for the experience even if it left me with my fair share of scars, both physical and mental."

"Alright," Gibbs started as he flipped the switch back up, "I'll trust you, but I expect a full explanation at some point."

"Of course, Gibbs. I planned on giving one to you soon enough at any rate."

* * *

Tony was confused. While this was a normal enough state of affairs, this confusion was deeper than usual due to the fact that there was apparently a 19 year old MI5 agent running around NCIS headquarters who also knew Gibbs well enough that Gibbs didn't kill the agent for sleeping at his desk. There was something more going on here that he couldn't see.

"There's something more going on here." Let it never be stated that Tony was one to ignore the obvious.

"Tony, you're overreacting. I'm sure he just graduated early and is a recruit with MI5. I had my BA when I was 17. It's not that unusual."

"McGee, you didn't see the way that the director was looking at him after she came out of that debriefing. That kid has done something. I can just tell."

Ziva was confused. While this was far from a normal state of affairs, this confusion was understandable due to the fact that her friend was somehow even more mysterious than he was before. Not only did he barely talk about his schooling years besides the adventures that he had with his friends, but he had apparently also lied when he stated that he was a university student. She didn't know what to think.

"Tony, she was probably just concerned over his connection to Gibbs. We still don't know what that connection is, remember?"

While all three of them were hanging out in Abby's lab, she had yet to speak until this exact moment.

"Actually, he told me that he grew up by Gibbs when Gibbs was stationed in the UK."

"See Tony, if the two of them were close than that could be a possible security concern that the director has. That would be the main concern if it were anyone _except _Gibbs after all."

"You know that it's not nice to speak about people behind their backs, yes?"

All four heads turned around at the sudden British accent. Coming out of the elevator was both of the people that they were currently just discussing, and they had been caught red handed.

"How about somebody tells me what you've found before I start slapping heads?"

With that, both McGee and Abby jumped over to the computers in order to show Gibbs what they had found.

"We were able to recover some security footage from outside the club. Corporal Stillman was out smoking a cigarette when this happened."

With a quick signal over to Abby, the footage started to play. It was in black and white and extremely grainy, showing the Corporal smoking a cigarette in a side alley when all of the sudden a large, dark SUV drove up and three men jumped out. They fired a bright light at Stillman before turning around and hopping back into their SUV and driving off. Abby then rewound the footage to immediately before they hopped back into the van. The still image showed a man in some ornate robes with a mask covering the upper half of his face and a long, thin stick, a bit over a foot long, in his hand.

All of the sudden, the members of the team heard Harry mutter under his breath.

"Fuck."


	4. A Revelation

**AN: This is going to be a slower chapter focusing a lot more on Harry's thoughts about the team and the way that their relationships are progressing. I hope to get to more action in the next chapter, but I really don't know what's gonna get included until I sit down to write. Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

_The still image showed a man in some ornate robes with a mask covering the upper half of his face and a long, thin stick, a bit over a foot long, in his hand._

_All of the sudden, the members of the team heard Harry mutter under his breath._

_"__Fuck."_

"Harry. What the hell am I looking at? Who are these people?"

"Those are members of a British terrorist group called Death Eaters. As for what, I legally can't tell you unless you get clearance. I need to make a call."

On that abrupt note, Harry quickly stepped out of the room, and into the elevator to go back up to the main floor. He needed not only the director of NCIS's permission, but he also needed to contact the USDM, the United States Department of Magic. Unlike Britain, the USDM was a department within the US government that oversaw all things concerning magic within the borders of the US. Getting an exemption from the International Statute of Secrecy was not easy, and getting 7, as would be needed for this case, would be damn near impossible without conceding to them getting oblivated afterwards. He would need every political muscle he had and his influence as the Conqueror-of-Voldemort on top of that to pull this off.

"Hermione, I need your legal expertise…"

As the elevator closed and Harry's voice faded off, the team looked at one another in confusion. They were of course familiar with the concept of needing clearance in order to be able to discuss certain topics, but not even being able to tell someone how a person _died_? That went further than any of them had heard of before.

* * *

"Agent Potter what you are suggesting would be one of the largest single breaches of the International Statue of Secrecy since World War II! There is next to no legal precedent for it, and the fact of the matter is that even your considerable fame won't buy you _that _much leeway!"

Harry was frustrated. For nearly all of his time in the magical world, he had gotten very used to simply doing what he wanted and then dealing with the consequences later. It very rarely mattered what school rules, or even international laws, he ended up breaking because he could almost always point at the good that came about as a result of his actions as a justification. It was much harder to justify his actions beforehand seeing how most people would be hard pressed to see the necessity of his actions without actually being on the ground themselves.

"And I am telling you, Supreme Mugwump, that the precedent for it is there in the 1963 case of the capture of Richard Locke and the 1989 debacle with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. This is before we even take into account the 1993 release of information regarding Sirius Black en mass to the muggles. There is all of the legal precedent that you could ever need, especially when we have video evidence of Death Eater activity in the United States! Due to the presence of Death Eaters, the UK has a right to send a representative, which will be myself, and the fact that the attack took place on American soil means that the US will take the lead on the investigation. Thus far, these attacks have been against a muggle, albeit one that was married to a witch, meaning the muggle authorities have jurisdiction."

"Muggles have no idea how to track a wizard! Even if we agreed that there was evidence, the USDM would be the ones to take over, not this NCIS that you mentioned."

"US law clearly states that in matters where the deceased are active navy or marines, the case will be taken over by NCIS. There is no exception for magicals, which the Corporal was not anyways."

"Fine Potter. Have it your way, but the fallout from this is going to be on you head if it turns out for the worse."

With that sudden dismissal, the floo call abruptly ended, and Harry felt like jumping for joy. It had taken him and Hermione nearly three days of constant arguing and harassing members of the International Confederation of Warlocks to see it their way, but he had finally gotten what he was after, 7 permanent exceptions to the ISS with a clause stating that they would not be oblivated of their knowledge of magic at any point in the future without an emergency situation being declared.

The team was considerably nervous regarding Harry's sudden withdrawal from society, but the fact that Harry would say that he was trying to get them clearance for his latest op helped get them off of his back. Actually being able to explain to them what he had been doing would be an absolute godsend.

* * *

Harry had actually become decent friends with the members of "Team Gibbs" that he had met over the few days that he had been in Washington. Tony seemed to simply be a combination of Ron and Sirius. He was as lazy as Ron at the worst of times, but he could always manage to put in the work when it was truly necessary for the task at hand. Like Sirius, Tony seemed to enjoy constant practical jokes, usually at the expense of McGee, but they rarely seemed malicious, and usually helped to lighten the mood in a job environment that could quickly wear down even the most hardened of people.

While Harry rarely understood exactly what Abby or McGee were talking about, they both reminded him too much of Hermione for him to see them in anything other than a positive light. They were both very passionate about their chosen fields, and they had a desire to share that enthusiasm with others.

Palmer was a bit odder, but the kid seemed to have a good heart and wanted to help others, so Harry could hardly get mad at him. Despite the fact that Palmer was older than him, Harry couldn't help but think of him in the same terms that he often thought of the younger years, as someone that he had to look out for, even if he knew that Palmer wouldn't always appreciate it.

Ducky was, in many ways, exactly the kind of person that Harry wanted as a mentor while at Hogwarts. He had the knowledge and presence that Dumbledore seemed to so often have, but he was also much less self-righteous and willing to listen to his issues in the same way that McGonagall was after his first year. The man seemed so excited to have another Brit there, and when Harry admitted to having gone to school in Scotland, there was little Harry could do to stop the man from sitting Harry down and regaling him with stories from long ago. Harry couldn't help but think that if Binns had spoken with half the personality of Ducky, than no one would have been able to fall asleep in that classroom.

Gibbs was, in many ways, the easiest for Harry to simply fall back in line with. He had always considered Gibbs to be a father figure to him, and that need for someone in Harry's life to be proud of him and his accomplishments had not diminished over time. Harry had tried to live his life partially by Gibbs's example, and actually having the man see at least part of where he had gotten in life was like a long time dream coming true for the orphaned boy.

It was perhaps the hardest to think about the ways he and Ziva had interacted over the past few days. Harry was far from blind to the fact that she was a very beautiful woman, and she seemed to have very little shame in stating that he was by no means as ugly as he liked to imagine himself to be. In fact, she seemed to remind him constantly of this whenever he attempted to make a self-deprecating joke about his many scars or his lack of height. In learning about her childhood and the distance that existed between her and her father, the two grew even closer. Harry could understand better than anyone the fact that blood did not make family, his aunt clear proof of that, and the fact that Harry could truly empathize with her situation helped immensely.

In addition to connecting over their issues, the two seemed to have much in common, from the way that they both loved going extremely fast to the fact that they both enjoyed learning new languages and new fighting techniques whenever they got the chance. While Harry rarely had time to bother with something as non-essential as languages while fighting in the Second Blood War, as it was now called, he truly did have a passion for the subject, and enjoyed being able to keep in contact with both Fleur Delacour, now Weasley, and Victor Krum in their native languages. It was especially useful for Victor considering the man's grasp of the English language was tenuous at the best of times.

Despite being unwilling to think about his growing attraction to the Mossad Officer, Harry truly was enjoying the time he spend with her, either at one of their apartments or the gym that Ziva liked to work out and practice her marital arts at. While Harry did not know Krav Maga specifically, all Mossad officers were required to be proficient in it, and Harry's knowledge of Jiu Jitsu and Kick Boxing tended to make up for it in their spars. The fact that they could manage to spend time together while also comparing and learning each other's fighting styles was a win-win as far as the pair were concerned, and Ziva was happy to help Harry in his quest to learn Hebrew that he had recent undertaken. While he was laughably bad at this point, he _had _only been at it for a short while, and it was the thought that counted with his desire to learn.

At a certain point, the desire to get the team exemptions to the Statue of Secrecy became less about gaining their help in capturing the rogue Death Eaters and more and more about gaining the ability to share all of himself with the people that he was rapidly considering his friends. His magic will always be a part of him, and without his friend knowing about it, Harry constantly felt as if he was holding back part of himself. He could never seem to tell the full story when he talked about his friends and their misadventures, and the fact that he was lying by omission had Harry feeling very uncomfortable about the whole situation. These exemptions would help with all of that, clearing the way for Harry to be fully truthful with his friends, both new and old.

* * *

"This is absolute bullshit"

"Tony! Harry wouldn't just lie to us like that!"

"McGee, what Harry is saying is flat out impossible. I'm as big of a fan of magic as the next person, but what he is saying is strictly not possible."

Harry revealing the existence of magic to the team had certain requirements. He needed to be in a space where they were not monitored and there was no way for someone else to accidently overhear them, which ruled out most of NCIS headquarters besides the Director's office. Harry had instead decided to simply invite the team over to a dinner at the apartment that he was currently renting. That way he could tell all of them at once without there being a chance of someone walking in on them.

Harry sighed deeply and finally spoke up, "You do know that I'm not expecting you to believe me without proof, yes? I can actually demonstrate what I am talking about," and with that and a sudden wave of his wand, Harry transfigured the glass bottle that was in Tony's hand into a small black kitten that was meowing for attention.

The sudden transformation caused nearly ever member of the table to jump back in shock and Tony accidently dumped the kitten on his lap in his surprise. The kitten, in response, hissed at him and jumped over to Harry who started petting the cat now perched on his lap.

"There. That cat clearly wasn't there before, and I managed to change the bottle that you were drinking out of into a real, breathing animal. Unless you're going to insist that _that _was simply a party trick too, than you have to admit that magic is real. We've done a very good job of hiding our community, but the proof is right in front of your eyes, Tony."

Ducky seemed to be the most contemplative of all of them. Where McGee, Abby, Palmer were just excited and wanted to know what this hidden world offered, and Gibbs and Ziva mostly were concerned with the threats that might come from this world, Ducky seemed to be in deep thought about something.

"So that's what Augusta was going on about. She never _would_ explain to me where she went to school or what she did for work."

Harry was dumbstruck, "Augusta Longbottom, perchance?"

"Why yes, my dear boy, how ever did you know? She was a childhood friend of mine that I have simply lost contact with over the years."

"I actually went to school with her grandson, Neville. We roomed together for six years. Would have been seven if it wasn't for the war."

It felt so good to Harry to finally come clear about his life and the actions that he had been forced to do. How could he ever tell anyone that he had killed for the first time at age 11, even if it was in self-defense, without first explaining about magic and the situation that made him killing Quirrell necessary? How could he ever talk about the war that he fought in without explaining that no muggle government forced him to become a child solider for a war that most had never heard of?

Gibbs was mostly angry and proud right now. He was angry at the numerous people who had decided to take the sweet kid that he had known and force him into fighting in a war at an age when most would be more concerned about asking out their crushes and getting through school. He was also so proud of Harry for all that he had accomplished. The awards were nice and all, but Gibbs was mostly proud of Harry for how good he still managed to be despite all of the hardships that he had gone through. It would have been easy, and even extremely understandable, for Harry to have grown bitter over what happened or have decided that he had had his fill of violence, but instead Harry had decided to go out and continue helping people and go through actual MI5 training in order to further that goal. There certainly was a lot to be proud of when someone helped raise a kid like Harry Potter.


	5. An Interview

**Can we all just collectively decide to ignore that it's been a bit over a year and just be happy that I am still attempting to write?**

* * *

The morning after Harry revealed the existence of magic to the team, he requested permission to go out to the crime scene and perform some tests of his own in order to determine if he could find enough magical residue to figure out a signature.

"As I've been attempting to explain to you for the last twenty minutes, McGee, all cast magic leaves trace amounts in the environment after a spell has been cast, alright? It's the basics of conservation of energy. Some of it will get released out naturally as casting a spell is not a perfect system. That release can accumulate if the spell casting is in an area without a lot of magicals, and a spell like the killing curse is almost certainly powerful enough to leave at least some residue. You get the residue, and it can act as a fingerprint."

Harry was getting a bit annoyed at McGee at this point. His strong suit had always been the more practical side of things with the theory falling to the wayside. It was much more important to know how to defend yourself, in his view, than to know how the defenses actually worked.

"Are you going to run it through a magical database then and figure out who committed the crime then?"

"I'm afraid that we don't have an international database for signatures. The magic on them tends to have a limited range, and I can't make the trip back to London just to run a single signature. No, I mostly just need it for if the case goes to trial."

The car's arrival at the crime scene could not have come soon enough, as Harry slipped out of the car nearly as soon as it had stopped moving.

"As easy going as he seems sometimes, you can really tell he grew up with Gibbs when he gets all business," Tony muttered to McGee, mistaking Harry's strategic retreat for dedication to the case.

As Harry started to analyze the magic left over in the alley, he found it particularly odd that the magic seemed almost familiar. Not quite enough that it was easily recognizable to him in the way that Voldemort's and Lucius Malfoy's magics were, but more something in the back of his mind.

"While I don't recognize it specifically, it is most likely one of the higher up Death Eaters. Most of them still have residue left over from Voldemort himself, and it seems that this one does as well."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Both. I know most of their tactics, but most of their tactics involve killing large amounts of people in order to terrorize the pubic into being too afraid to fight back."

As per usual, Tony picked the worst possible time to chime in, "Well. I know that_ I'm _not the one telling the boss that."

* * *

Once Harry, McGee, and Tony had gotten back, after Gibbs anger at the situation had calmed down that is, Ziva was off to once more interview Elizabeth Stillman, this time with Harry in tow and the knowledge that she was a witch to assist them.

"I just want to warn you ahead of time, Ziva; there is a decent chance that Mrs. Stillman will recognize me from my actions in the Second Blood War. On top of that, she was just 4 years above me at Hogwarts…"

"I'm sure that even if she recognizes you, it won't be that bad of a reaction. Most civilians understand that there are certain things that you need to do in war time."

Harry muttered his response under his breath, too shallow for her to hear, "I'm not exactly afraid of a _bad _reaction."

With his warning seemingly finished with, Ziva rang the doorbell, and, after a short while, Elizabeth Stillman answered the door.

"Merlin! You're Harry Potter!"

With this response, Ziva turned incredulously back to Harry, who seemed to be uncomfortable with the situation but resigned to it anyway.

"Yes. I am Harry Potter, Mrs. Stillman, but right now I'm here on attachment to NCIS to investigate your husband's death. May we come in?"

"Of course you can come in! Can I make you some tea? I can't believe that you're here. Why are you here anyway? Wait. What do you mean you're on attachment to NCIS? You're a national hero! Why would you be working for another country's government?"

"Some tea would be lovely. This is my associate, Officer David. We might want to discuss this inside if you don't mind."

"Oh of course. I apologize for my outburst earlier. Please come in."

With this Mrs. Stillman stepped into the house, rushing to the kitchen to make the tea. Ziva, seeing this as a prime opportunity, immediately turned on Harry the second that they entered the house.

"What was that? Why did she immediately fall over us the second that you showed your face, let alone said your name?"

"First off Ziva, it's fell over herself. Secondly, I am very famous from both the First and Second Blood Wars. I'm honestly more shocked that she had that _mild _of a reaction to me. Most of the time people start to shake my hand and then progress to crying onto me."

"Wait. The First Blood War? You've never mentioned that before."

"The First Blood War was Voldemort's first attempt at taking over magical Britain. It lasted about a decade until it ended on October 31st 1988 when my mother forced Voldemort into hiding. As I lived through the attack when neither of my parents did, magical Britain, using the same amount of intelligence that they normally do, immediately declared that a 15 month old child had killed the worst dark lord in recent history rather than either of his very powerful parents."

"What the fuck?"

Their conversation came to an abrupt halt as Mrs. Stillman chose this exact moment to return to the living room with the tea that she had promised the two of them. Mrs. Stillman looked far more put together than she was when she first saw Harry, but there was still a hint of hero worship in her eyes as she set down the tea tray.

"So, Mr. Potter. Why exactly are you working with NCIS? I left magical Britain behind me years ago."

"I'm sorry to say, Mrs. Stillman, that magical Britain didn't quite leave you behind. We have reason to believe that a Death Eater was involved in the murder of your husband."

"What are Death Eaters doing in the US? I thought you rounded up the last of them anyways. John and I were actually talking about going back to Britain for a visit sometime now that it's actually safe. I… I'm sorry. It's still hard. My brain just won't think of him as gone. It just keeps telling me that he's just away at the store or on deployment."

"Trust me when I tell you, Mrs. Stillman, that is does get easier with time. It's a horrible thing to say or think about, but it does get easier."

Ziva had conducted enough of these interviews to know that her and Harry needed to get to the heart of the matter before Mrs. Stillman started to break down again.

"I'm sorry to ask, but now that we are aware of magic, do you have any revisions to your earlier interview? Any people who you felt that you couldn't tell us about before but now feel that you are able to comment on?"

"I'm afraid not, Officer David. While it would make sense that the Death Eaters would target me, I haven't been in Britain for years and I would be a low priority at that. I have absolutely no clue who would choose to go after my husband instead of me.

The more Harry thought about this case, the odder it seemed to him. Most Death Eaters would have chosen to go after Elizabeth Stillman rather than bothering with her muggle husband. Additionally, this attack was planned out methodically. This wasn't simply a random raid that happened to get her husband.

_"__The choice in targets narrows down the options for who committed these attacks," _Harry thought to himself, _"Not many of the higher level Death Eaters would chose attacking the muggle rather than the muggleborn."_

"Thank you for your time, Mrs. Stillman. We'll be sure to let you know if there are any updates in the case."

"Thank you, Mr. Potter. Both for this, and for what you did back home."

As Harry and Ziva left the house, Harry turned to Ziva and said, "I might have an idea as to who murdered Corporal Stillman, and we better hope that I'm wrong."


End file.
